I wasn't diagnosed till I wads eleven and went to a very academic school they are now pressurising me to use a laptop I however feel that I don't need one ( I really don't have bad handwriting) think about it 11 years of being given extra handwriting lessons and I feel of I wasn't diagnosed my handwriting would never even have being brought up I feel victimised at school for instance one late homework turns into annexing with the head of year about organisation and I am made to sit a the front where only people who have misbehaved sit thank you in advance ! X

tell them in writing how you feel. say that you do not want a laptop, and the years of extra handwriting lessons have allowed you to write legibly enough for exams. say you feel victimised. say that you feel uncomfortable being forced to sit at the front.

the way i see it, dyspraxia is an extra hurdle in every race i run, but that extra hurdle, is just extra exercise, so in the end, i will come through stronger.

I agree with Abi-you need to let them know how you feel. I remember in my English mock exam in Year 11, I was put on the stage at the front of the school hall with a handful of other students, most of whom had challenging behaviour. I asked a teacher why I had been put there and he replied that they had grouped everybody with attention span problems at the front so they could observe us and keep us on task if necessary. My attention span was limited in some subjects but not in English-I loved English and had absolutely no problems in maintaining concentration when doing an English paper. Sitting there actually made me a lot more distracted than I had been in any exam before as 2 of the students on the stage with me got up and walked out halfway through and the invigilator, who was the IT teacher, kept fiddling with his ID badge, slipping it through his fingers and I kept getting distracted by the noise. I could never understand their reasoning behind that-it wasn't as if they had done it because we needed extra time as we were not allowed extra time as it was an internal exam. I was a lot happier when I took my real exams in the main hall like everyone else.

Tell them you do not want it. I would suggest you refuse to use it, but I think that's going to be bad advice..I refused to use the laptop given for me in class because it led to unwanted attention. Could you make it clear that you would not use it if it was provided?

The Doctor: Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.Tumblr

Hi, i understand how you feel , do you feel you'd be able to be faster in an exam with a laptop? I understood you wouldn't want it in a classroom, i was offered a laptop in year 7 but i didn't want it because i was embarrassed and thought people would laugh at me, but i think i that in exams i don't mind what people think - i'd rather get a better grade and have people asking me questions about it than not use a laptop and not get the grade i want. I hope i'd be in a separate room anyway, so that no one would notice and i could concentrate better. i know that feeling "different" is a pressure and is embarrassing, but it's really a question of what would work best for you - so if you don't need it don't have it and if you do, do! I love English and like to write fast as i have lots of ideas and can lose the flow if i have to concentrate on shaping letters. i taught myself to type on a free app called BBC Dancemat Typing and it was really fun and useful, i can type loads faster because of it.

I used a laptop in all my classes and exams, but not because my handwriting wasn't neat - it is very neat. Unfortunately it costs me a lot of effort to keep it that way, and I go much more slowly than anybody else. I also spend so much time concentrating on the formation of my letters that I end up skipping words out, as my brain has run faster than my hand. 'This poem was written in response to Afrika's experiences in the aftermath of apartheid' would come out as 'This poem was written in to aftermath of apartheid'. Then I would have to cross it out and start again, or else add words in, and my paper ended up looking like it had been half-eaten by a badger anyway. I also have a very odd grip on the pen (it's the only way I can control it) and my hand starts to spasm up after about ten seconds of writing.

Before I was assigned the laptop, I didn't realise that this wasn't normal. I would hear the other students talking about the writer's cramp they got in tests and I didn't know that they were referring to an ache that set in only when they'd done a lot of work. I thought it was the same problem as mine, and I couldn't work out why they got on so fast while I was so slow and struggled to finish any questions.

The quality of my work also changes when it's typed - the ideas and arguments that I use are better expressed. The psychologist was the first to point that out to me, and it was another reason for recommending the laptop. Perhaps your school has offered you one for a similar reason. I think you should consider all these things before you turn it down completely - illegible handwriting is not the only reason to have a computer.